1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a telephony communication and, more particularly, to a push to talk over a cellular (PoC) telephony.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Push-to-Talk over Cellular (PoC) Standard of the Open Mobile Alliance™ supports a push-to-talk communication between participating cellular telephones that support the PoC standard. As is well-known, the Push-to-Talk standard allows a walkie-talkie type half-duplex communication to be carried out between registered users.
Typically, a transmitting telephone device has an address book containing telephone numbers of contacts with whom a session may be established. An initiator selects a recipient from the address book and a push-button is depressed, whereupon a half-duplex communication session is established with the selected recipient. The recipient is alerted, typically by a characteristic tone that informs him that the incoming call is a Push-to-Talk call. The recipient may depress an accept-call button, whereby (s)he will be able to hear the initiator, but without the ability to reply until the initiator ceases speaking and lifts his finger from the push-button.
If the recipient is equipped with a PoC-compatible device, (s)he may at this stage depress a similar push-button on her/his device so as to establish a walkie-talkie type communication with the initiator. If the recipient is not equipped with a PoC-compatible device, then no service can be provided and in such a case a tone indicating failure will be heard on the initiator device.
Mobile telephones having integral cameras are becoming popular. These telephones allow still video images to be captured and communicated to remote users, both over the cellular network and, of course, over the Internet.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,763,226 to McZeal Jr. filed Jul. 31, 2002 relates to a multifunctional world wide walkie-talkie, a cellular-satellite wireless instant messenger computer and a network for establishing global wireless VoIP communications, unified messaging, and video conferencing via the Internet. Upon depressing a send video mail button, a built-in real time digital web camera is activated. This digital web camera provides a pre-recorded live video for a subsequent data transfer to another unit, Internet user, cell phone, email address or any other computing device capable of receiving MPEG, wav, or sound files.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,763,226, however, does not allow real time walkie-talkie video streaming between the participating devices. Moreover, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,763,226, the world wide walkie-talkie operates principally using VoIP over the Internet and is not compatible with the prevailing PoC Standard. Accordingly, the world wide walkie-talkie described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,763,226 cannot establish real time walkie talkie video streaming with a cellular telephone operating under the PoC Standard and requires not only special software but also special hardware to operate under the PoC. Specifically, an enhanced cellular telephone having a video display device and capable of receiving walkie-talkie audio communication under the PoC Standard, would not be able to receive video streaming from a sending party operating according to the protocols described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,763,226.
It would therefore be desirable and significantly beneficial if an enhanced cellular telephone having a video display device could initiate a real time video streaming under the PoC Standard to a sending party. It would also be desirable if such an enhanced cellular telephone could perform this operation without further modification.
It would also be desirable if an enhanced cellular telephone having a video display device could receive a real time video streaming from a sending party without further modification and regardless of its own ability to initiate such a communication.
Furthermore, WO03058518 to Crampton published Jul. 17, 2003 and titled “Method and apparatus for an avatar user interface system,” discloses an avatar user interface system where a server operates a communication session between one or more computing appliance means coupled via a network. An avatar user interface application resides on each computing appliance for representing the user visually by an avatar.
Moreover, EP1450570A1 published Aug. 25, 2004 to Lucent Technologies Inc. and titled “Communication to one mobile station of update of call participation availability status of another mobile station,” discloses an application server component of an apparatus that comprises a buddy list service that monitors a status (e.g., online, offline, busy, on a call) of mobile stations to determine whether these mobile stations are available for participation in a call. A buddy list, in one example, has a user administered list of colleagues, workgroup members, and/or friends.
All of the above mentioned references are incorporated herein by reference.